Around him Miguel noticed the glances of passing strangers: a neatly dressed Jew locked in uncomfortable conversation with a beggar. Among the openly curious Catholic Portuguese, this strange pair would have been surrounded by a crowd of curious maids and peasant housewives, staring with open amusement as they wiped their floured hands on their aprons, laughing and heckling as though this conflict were a puppet show staged for their pleasure. Here, among the Dutch, who had taken to heart the introspective doctrine of their Reformed Church, the curious looked away politely, as if to cast their eyes upon someone else’s business was shameful. Surely they had troubles of their own that needed tending.

“We understand each other,” Joachim said. “I’ll take those two guilders.”

Miguel took a step back, but he considered it a defiant retreat. “You’ll get nothing from me now. I offered you kindness, and you repay me with impudence. Keep your distance from me, or shit-smeared straw and piss gruel will seem to you the greatest luxuries in the world.”

Miguel turned in the other direction and headed toward the Exchange, pushing his legs, now heavy and stiff, as quickly as he could, trying to erase the discomfort of the encounter by doing something decisive. He replayed the incident again and again in his mind. He should have given the fellow his two guilders. He should have given him ten. Anything to make him go away.

“Damn my pride,” he murmured. A madman might say anything to anyone, including the Ma’amad. If Parido should learn that Miguel had been brokering for a gentile, all his protests of goodwill would be like smoke in the air.

A few weeks before, Miguel might have even struck Joachim and allowed the consequences to come as they may. Now he had too much to lose. He would not put his new expectations at risk for a disgruntled vagabond. He would see Joachim at the bottom of a canal first.

12

Hannah loved to visit the fish market during Exchange hours because she had to pass along the Dam and would occasionally catch sight of Miguel. He would be oblivious to her presence, locked in conversation with some great merchant or other, his confidence radiating, one hand contemplatively rubbing his bristly beard. He would laugh and slap his friend upon the back. She had never seen him so at ease as when he was upon the Dam, and she liked to believe that this agreeable happy man was Miguel’s secret self, at home in the shadow of the palatial Town Hall and the glorious Exchange, the self he would become once he cleared himself of his debt and his brother’s yoke.

Daniel had grown particularly fond of herring, since their arrival in Amsterdam, and wanted to eat it three times a week, prepared in stews, or in sauces with raisins and nutmeg, and sometimes smothered in butter and parsley. The stall keepers down at the fish market had a hundred ways to sell bad herring, but Annetje knew all their tricks and made herself useful in testing the most handsome specimens for signs of being slicked with oil, dyed, or salted to hide the smell of rot. After the women bought their fish, they crossed the Dam to seek out sellers of vegetables and, as Daniel had been generous with money that morning, fruit for after the meal. As she went about her purchases, Hannah kept her eyes on the Exchange, never knowing when she might be treated to a glimpse of Miguel, aglow in his pecuniary glory.

Annetje had been unusually kind to her since their church outing. She knew nothing of Hannah’s fleeting encounter with the widow, so she could not guess why Hannah had returned to her care so sullen. The girl had brought her home and given her hot wine with extra cloves. She had cooked leafy cabbage for her to improve her blood, but if her blood had improved, Hannah showed no signs of it. Annetje joked with her, snapped at her, coddled her, poked fingers in her sides, and by turns kissed and pinched her cheeks, but nothing worked. The girl eventually settled in with Hannah’s new moodiness and declared she would not waste her time attempting to coax so sad a mope into better spirits.

Hannah had thought to tell her. She wanted to tell someone, but she had been in no mind to share more secrets with the girl, so she said nothing. She lay in bed at night thinking of that wicked stare, and once or twice she had thought to awaken Daniel-or merely shove him, for he was often enough awake with aching teeth-and confess all to him. He would never cast her out, not while she carried his child. Still, she kept her tongue. She thought about telling Miguel. The widow was his friend, after all, but she could not even dream of explaining to him what she had been doing in that part of town.

No one need know, she repeated to herself during those long nights. No one would find out, and there would be no consequences if she just kept silent.

Only the coffee berries comforted her now. She had slipped down to Miguel’s cellar once more and slid a handful into her apron. One handful. How long would that last? So she took another, and then a half handful to be sure she need not come again so soon. Inside the sack, the beans appeared diminished, but Miguel would hardly notice. If he traded in the fruit, he might get more as easily as he pleased. For all she knew, this was a new sack entirely.

Now, as she and Annetje returned to the Vlooyenburg, their baskets heavy with fish and carrots, she chewed on her berries, working them slowly so they might last longer. But even though she had eaten a dozen berries or more, the fear pulled at her, and she began to wonder if the effect of the fruit was no match for the terrors that now lurked everywhere.

She hardly noticed where they walked, so Annetje, observing her absent frame of mind, led her through the narrow and ancient Hoogstraat, where the stones were red with blood from the hog butchers that lined either side. She took obvious pleasure in the idea of trailing pig blood into a Jew’s house. Hannah snapped alert to avoid the congealing puddles, but when they were halfway through the aisle she was distracted by the burn of eyes upon her like the hot breath of a predator. She dared not turn around, so with her free hand she gripped Annetje’s arm, hoping her intent would be clear: let us hurry. It was not. Annetje sensed something was amiss, so she stopped and turned to look. There was nothing left for Hannah but to turn around too.

Pretty as a portrait, the widow approached her, smiling her wide irresistible smile. She hardly looked where she walked, but her natural grace steered her past the puddles of blood and offal. A few paces behind lagged her man, young, fair-haired, and handsome in the most menacing way imaginable. He held back, to keep a watchful eye on her.

“My dear,” the widow said to Hannah, “do you understand my language?” She turned to Annetje. “Girl, does the senhora understand?”

Hannah was too frightened to lie or even to answer. Her head clouded with the pungent scent of pigs’ blood. Surely the widow now wanted something for her silence, and if Hannah could not provide it, she would find herself, her husband, her child destroyed. To save himself, Daniel would surely divorce her. He might be able to repair his reputation in the community by acting cruelly to the wife who had defiled his name. And then what would Hannah do, throw herself and her child upon the mercy of some convent?

“She understands well enough,” Annetje said, making no effort to hide her confusion. She knew who the widow was and could not imagine her business with Hannah. “But her tongue is too ill made to form the sounds of Dutch.”

Wicked though she might be, Annetje proved her worth now. If Hannah could not speak, it would shorten their conversation, force the widow to be clear and direct.

“Very well, sweetheart, you just nod if you understand me and shake your head if you do not. Can you do that, my dear?”